Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs Google Nexus 6

ANDROID FANS in the market for a phablet are currently spoilt for choice, but the Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4 stand out as the most notable contenders vying for buyers' attention this Christmas.

Samsung's Galaxy Note range has long held a reputation for being among the biggest smartphones on the market, and often the go-to phablet for many, but Google's Nexus 6, with its 6in screen and large dimensions, makes the Galaxy Note 4 look almost petite.

Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs Google Nexus 6

Design

The Nexus 6 and the Note 4 belong to the 2014-2015 generation smartphones with a metal frame. The main weakness of Android phones’ has long been the choice of designs and materials, aside from the HTC One (M8) and the Sony devices since the Xperia Z. This is of course subjective, but I feel that Android phones are really getting nicer this year. The Note 4 and the Nexus 6 were able to squeeze out of the ugly mold and are both quite elegant.

The Nexus 6 was crafted in the image of the Moto X (2014), aside from it being bigger and including a few changes: the volume and power buttons have been moved down, the same goes for the camera and the flash, though they remain in the middle of the device. The Galaxy Note 4 has a plastic backing with an aluminum frame, and has the same physical Samsung buttons that we’ve become accustomed to.

One point in which the Nexus 6 is better than the Note 4 is that the Google phone is water-resistant, while the Note 4 is not. What it lacks in water resistance though, it make up with the included S Pen stylus which fits snuggly into the chassis.

Display

Much like in the design department, the Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4 are fairly evenly matched when it comes to displays, sporting 6in 1440x2560 Amoled and 5.7in 1440x2560 Amoled screens respectively.

Given its smaller screen size, the Galaxy Note 4 has the higher pixel density, which comes in at 515ppi compared with the Nexus 6's 493ppi.

However, in terms of quality, it's hard to judge a winner between the two. Both offer great brightness, sharpness levels and viewing angles, but we did notice that both suffer from slight color distortion probably owing to the Amoled technology.

Getting one up on the Nexus 6, the Galaxy Note 4 has the added bonus of stylus input, allowing users to doodle and make notes on the display.

Thanks to this, and the fact that the Nexus 6 is extremely difficult to use with one hand, the Galaxy Note 4 wins another round.

Performance

Both devices come with top notch processors and stunning QHD displays. However just like the LG G3, such a demanding screen often has an effect on the overall smoothness of a phone's performance, especially when playing HD games. This was noticed when playing games on both either device. However, for the most part, everything ran impeccably for either device, apps opened right away, animations were crisp and what can be observed are two of the best performing smartphones around. There was no clear winner in this section.

Software

As previously mentioned, the Nexus 6 runs a stock version of Lollipop, while the Galaxy Note 4 runs Android 4.4.4 KitKat overlaid with Samsung's TouchWiz skin.

Samsung has hinted that the Galaxy Note 4 will be updated to Lollipop, but has yet to say when.

This means that the Nexus 6 comes with all the latest features Google has to offer, including the new Material design which has a cleaner look and smoother animations and is a huge improvement on KitKat.

There are also other features such as improved multitasking, enhanced security and a battery saving mode.

The Galaxy Note 4, on the other hand, comes with the TouchWiz interface, which has a reputation for being one of the heaviest Android skins.

This rings true on the Note 4, which is stuffed full of custom features, such as a Flipboard homescreen overlay, a bunch of Samsung's own apps and a handful of apps that you're not likely to look at, including Pizza.de and HRS Hotels.

Camera

The Nexus 6 was finally able to break away from the poor camera quality that plagued previous Nexus phones and does a standup job with its 13MP back shooter. Motorola also included the optical image stabilizer. The benefits of this technology could be seen in the results: images taken in low light situations turned out great and offer little noise. The Galaxy Note 4 on the other hand has a higher resolution rear camera of 16 MP, in addition to an ISOCELL sensor, an optical image stabilizer and a long list of shooting modes.

It's also interesting to note that that either device was treated differently in terms of front camera resolution. The Nexus 6 only comes with 2 MP on the front, while the Note 4 has 3.7 MP. Samsung clearly understood that the current selfie trend in adopting a better camera on the front. They also included a neat feature which allows users to use the back facing camera to take selfies which uses the heart rate monitor as a sensor.

Battery

The Nexus 6 and Galaxy Note 4 both pack 3,220mAh batteries. Google and Samsung quote up to 24 and 20 hours of talk time respectively.

Despite Google's claims, we found that the Galaxy Note 4 managed to outlive the Nexus 6 during our battery burn tests. The Nexus 6 lasted eight hours, while the Galaxy Note 4 managed nine hours.

For those not watching video 24 hours a day, we found both smartphones easily offered a full day of use, and on average made it into a second day without any problems.

Both come with quick charge modes onboard. Samsung's custom Fast Charging feature enables the Note 4 to be charged from zero to 50 percent in 30 minutes, while Motorola's Turbo Charger juices the Nexus 6 with six hours of battery life in just 15 minutes.

Storage

The Nexus 6 is available in 32GB and 64GB capacities, with no room to expand via microSD.

The Galaxy Note 4, on the other hand, comes in a 32GB variant only, but with an onboard microSD offering an extra 128GB.

Overall winner: Galaxy Note 4

There's barely a whisker in it, but the Galaxy Note 4 trumped the Nexus 6 in four out of seven categories.

Google's latest smartphone would be an obvious choice for those after a stock Android 5.0 Lollipop experience, but we found the Galaxy Note 4 more manageable owing to its smaller screen size and dimensions.

It also came out top when it comes to battery life and storage, offering the option to expand the 32GB internal memory via microSD.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 4 vs iPhone 6 plus comparison

Samsung Galaxy Note 4

 vs

 iPhone 6 plus comparison 

Samsung is known for its feature-rich (some would say "overflowing"), utilitarian designs but it's slowly coming around to metal designs with the Alpha and now the Galaxy Note 4. It's just a metal rim, so the user-replaceable battery and microSD card slot are intact.

The screen size also remained unchanged (5.7") to keep the device manageable single-handedly, but resolution increased to QHD. The defining feature of the Note series, the S Pen, was also improved and Samsung included optical image stabilization (OIS) to the list of camera specs.

The biggest change for Apple is the screen - after years of keeping just about the same size and sharpness, the company took the plunge. The design language changed more than it did for the Galaxy and is now smooth and rounded like an iPod Touch, it's impressively slim too. It's the OIS-enabled camera that is the other advantage over the vanilla iPhone 6.

With bigger screens, both phones and their respective platforms (iOS and Android + TouchWiz) have their ways of boosting usability.

Pros

·       iPhone 6 Plus has great specs and build quality

·       Like a smaller more connected iPad

Cons

·       Galaxy Note 4 has more raw power

·       Samsung's phone has better display specs

iPhone 6 Plus vs Galaxy Note 4 comparison review

UK price

The Galaxy Note 4 is a premium high-end smartphone so it's no surprise to see it with a price tag of around £550 inc VAT for the 32GB edition. The iPhone 6 Plus costs a bit more. There are three models which start at £619 for the 16GB model. This scales up to £699 for 64GB, and £789 for 128GB. You will pay a premium for the iPhone phablet just as you pay extra for any iPhone. We think that is a worthwhile expense, but the Galaxy Note 4 is a tremendous handset. So let's see what you get for the money with the iPhone 6 Plus. 

Key specs and performance

With the Galaxy Note 4 you get a 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor or Exynos 5433 octa-core processor, and 3GB of RAM. We found it to be extremely smooth and snappy when launching and switching apps.

The iPhone 6 Plus comes with a new processor, known as the A8. This is a 20-nanometer 64-bit CPU with 2 billion transistors. It is a dual core chip with a frequency of 1.2 GHz. It's paired with 1GB RAM. The iPhone 6 Plus is consummately slick and zippy in use.                                                                                

Some Android manufacturers - Samsung included - have been accused of gaming benchmarks. You should know that both of these handsets are super-fast, responsive, and powerful.

Screen

The screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 is stunning. It's a 5.7in Quad-HD Super AMOLED display. That's a resolution of 2560 x 1440, which means a whopping 515ppi pixel density. The iPhone 6 Plus has a 5.5-inch Retina HD screen, which means in this case a resolution of 1920 x 1080 and a pixel density of 401 ppi. So again lagging behind in terms of pure specs, but will you notice the difference? Apple says it offers wider viewing angles because of its dual-domain pixels, after all.

While using the Note 4, we found that the screen had an incredible sense of depth, and we can imagine that it'll be difficult to go back to full-HD once you've used a smartphone or tablet with a Quad HD screen like this one. Which is not to say the the iPhone 6 Plus display is in any way a bad screen, just that the Note 4's is quantifiably better.

Storage

The 32GB Galaxy Note 4 comes with a microSD card slot which can take up to 128GB cards. The iPhone 6 Plus comes in 16GB, 64GB and 128GB flavors, but has no expandable storage. Onboard storage is always better for performance, but it is reflected in the price. None the less, with the exception of the next to useless 16GB model, we prefer the iPhone's storage options. Onboard is always better.

Software

Android vs iOS is a conundrum. Android isn't like it used to be: if you are new to the smartphone game there's no obvious winner. These are the two most popular and best mobile operating systems around so it's about picking which one is right for you.

In essence, if you are a long-term iOS user you are probably best off sticking with what you know. You have after all almost certainly spent a lot of cash on apps that you'll have to spend again in Android. But it is worth considering that your iTunes music files will work in Android, and Android offers the opportunity of shopping around for music, movies, books and TV shows.

Cameras

The iPhone 6 Plus has the same top-line megapixel numbers as the iPhone 5s: 8Mp on the rear, and 1.2Mp on the front. But some things are more important than megapixel count. Apple assures us that the new iSight camera is better than its predecessor in many ways: optical image stabilization, is an impressive addition; as is continuous-autofocus when shooting video. We like the option of 240fps slow-mo video as well as 120fps. Improved panorama shots, face detection and low-light performance, round out Apple's claimed improvements. And burst mode has been added to the front-facing camera as well the rear one.

Samsung has improved the camera in the Galaxy Note 4, and we found the results to be quite impressive. The rear-facing camera is 16 Mp, with auto focus and Smart OIS (optical image stabilization). HDR on the Galaxy Note 4 offers a live preview, so you can see exactly what your image will look like before you capture it which is a neat trick. As you would expect, it can still record 4K video like its predecessor.

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